This invention relates to a technique of searching for a file relevant to an application in an information processing system.
An information processing system in general is composed of a plurality of applications. In an online commodity selling system, for example, a middleware application that executes computing such as an inventory check upon request from a customer, a database application that executes processing of saving customer information and inventory information, and other applications are combined to constitute one system.
Various settings about the operation of each application are usually recorded in a file called a settings file. The recording format of a settings file is typically the plain text format because of its readability and ease of editing work. Information written in a settings file includes, in addition to settings information about the operation of the application such as the buffer size and the timeout time, information about connections with other applications.
A writing mistake in a settings file which defines the operation of an information processing system directly leads to a system failure, and settings files are therefore one of the important objects managed by a maintenance person of the information processing system. For smooth maintenance work, the maintenance person has to have accurate knowledge of 1) the locations of many settings files scattered throughout the information processing system and 2) which settings file is associated with which application. Desirably, the maintenance person knows the accurate locations of a log file and a library file used as well as the locations of the settings files. A technique of managing storage location information of a file that stores information about various settings, log information, or the like has been disclosed against this background in JP 2006-92408 A.
The premise of the technique disclosed in JP 2006-92408 A is that the storage locations of various settings files, a log file, and the like are known in advance. In practice, however, knowing the location of a settings file for every application is not always easy to accomplish.
Examples of how to find a file relevant to an application in such cases include a method that uses a file search function provided by an operating system. Given a search term such as a file name, a file extension, or an update time, the file search function can find a file that matches the term from a file system.
The file search function is provided in most operating systems and is advantageous in that a flexible search for an objective file can be conducted by changing a search term. However, drawbacks in conducting a thorough search for settings files with the file search function are 1) the need to manually supply an appropriate search term and 2) the need to manually associate a found settings file with an application. Since these works have to be done manually and the same works need to be repeated each time the information system is increased in scale, a heavy burden is placed on the maintenance person. The manual works also require an appropriate selection of a search term for each application, which means that the maintenance person is required to have considerable knowledge of the information processing system. It is difficult to outsource the maintenance work of the information processing system or to hire a maintenance person who is well-versed in the workings of the information processing systems. For these reasons, maintaining an information processing system with the search function of an operating system alone is not practical measures.